An Easy Eating Plan

Today I thought a lot about eating plans. There are a million out there and then there are just as many plans on how to shop with coupons, how to not shop with coupons. How to stock your pantry. How to shop in bulk or how to shop every couple days. There are folks that try them all, just hoping to find a way that works for them. Today I realized that for us, the eating plan is so simple, you eat what is ready to be eaten from the garden. I suspect that this is how people ate for thousands of years. Tonight we had corn on the cob, green beans, potato salad, fresh tomatoes, deviled eggs, baked beans and home made bread, still warm from the oven. It wasn't a complicated meal plan, it was what I gathered today from our own land, except for the baked beans and the flour, sugar and yeast for the bread. What I picked, we ate. Of course in winter we might be eating a little less if we depended on the garden alone. But, in truth, here in North Texas we can grow almost all year long. We plant twice each year. There are not many winters when we don't have collard greens and cabbage growing.
I do admit, it's hard work. Tonight I am bone weary. Garden work, animal chores, cooking, caring for Mei-Ling and Melanie all day. I spent hours in the kitchen...so many green beans to prepare so they won't go to waste. Baking to be done along with all the pots and pans used in preparation. There were loads of laundry to be washed and hung out, then folded and put away. Floors to be cleaned and honestly I think if you added up my time sitting down, it would not have come to an hour. I am in no way complaining, quite the opposite actually. I feel so thankful for a life that follows the cycle of nature so closely. That for much of the year meals are planned according to what was just picked in the garden. Not by what the sales are or according to the latest diet. I am thankful that my arms are strong to do the work needing to be done. That I can pray for my children while my hands knead the bread dough, rather than let a machine do it for me, robbing me of that time when the thump thump of the dough being turned over and over, gives time to stand and pray. I am thankful that sleep comes to me so easily at night, soundly sleeping until morning comes.
I am well aware that this is not the life for everyone, but it is for me.

Women so long ago, would have laughed at our numerous eating plans and shopping lists, for life in the olden days was far less complicated. You made due with what you had, when you had it.

Bread just out of the oven

tomatoes in a bowl ready to be eaten

Some of the green beans steaming for the evening meal.